In existing computer systems, a user can publish information to other users in an enterprise by sending electronic mail (“email”) messages to multiple recipients, or by putting documents in shared content sources, such as databases or repositories. However, publication by email message to multiple recipients is problematic, in that the resulting email messages appear in the destination users' inboxes, even if they are not important to that receiving user. This may cause a flooding problem in the inbox. For many users, such email publications are undesirable, almost like spam.
In an alternative approach, information is published by placement in a shared content source, to which users can navigate when they want to look for certain information. However, there are also problems with the publication of information to such shared sources. A user may not know which shared source to use to publish which information. A user may not know whether a shared source exists for publication of the information, or the location of an appropriate shared source. Additionally, it may be undesirable to publish the information in multiple shared sources when multiple shared sources exist in which the information could be published in. Overall, publication through shared sources is frequently inconvenient and time consuming, and users accordingly are discouraged from publishing information that could advantageously be shared.
Some existing systems include the concept of mail-in databases that have email addresses. These systems allow a user to email messages to shared sources in order to publish information. These solutions have been significantly limited, however, in that users still often do not know the appropriate email address(es) of the shared source(s).
For the above reasons it would be desirable to have a new system for users to conveniently share information with multiple other users. The system should be intuitive in the way it operates, such that users can easily store the information to be published within the shared sources.